DAY 46 OF THE GAZA WAR: Hostage Agreement Reached,50 Women and Children to be Freed

Tel Aviv Diary November 21, 2023

HOSTAGE AGREEMENT

Today's major news is the announcement of the long awaited agreement on a partial hostage release. Hamas has agreed to release 50 of the 240 hostages they abducted. Those to be set free in this initial wave of releases all women and children, expected to be liberated over a period of four days. Over the course of the agreed to four day ceasefire, 10 hostages are to be released each day. In return, Israel will free 140 Palestinian prisoners, including women and juveniles.

At the conclusion of the four-day ceasefire, for every additional 10 hostages released by Hamas, there will be an additional one day of ceasefire. Another Hamas condition was that Israel will refrain from flying drones over Gaza for six hours each day. Insistence on this stipulation suggests Hamas doesn't want Israel to monitor its activities, though it's somewhat ineffective as Israel possesses aircraft capable of surveillance, without the need to fly directly over Gaza. Additionally, the Red Cross will visit all of the remaining unreleased hostages, providing them with medicine, marking the first time such external access to the hostages has been granted

.According to the latest information, the initial group of 50 individuals to be released includes 30 children, 10 mothers, and 10 elderly women.

The Knesset’s two far-right-wing parties (Otzma Yehudit, headed by Minister Ben-Gvir and the Religious Zionists, led by Minister Smotrich) have announced their opposition and plans to vote against the current hostage release agreement, claiming it constitutes a victory for terrorism. However, their rancor appears to be purely political, and unlikely to impact the expected approval of the agreement tonight, by a large majority. The deal is seen as favorable, compared to the previous exchange of Gilad Shalit for 1,000 prisoners — as this time, 50 women and children are being exchanged for 140 prisoners. The four-day ceasefire, while beneficial to Hamas, will also provide a much-needed break for our troops, who have been in the field for four weeks.

A significant question remains regarding what will happen after the initial period of ceasefire and hostage releases. The current agreement allows for the potential addition of several days of ceasefire, to facilitate the release of additional hostages — with up to another 30 hostages potentially being freed. The fear amongst some here is that Israel will not be able to resume fighting forward following an extended ceasefire. However, I do not think anything will be able to stop the IDF from resuming combat.

The security cabinet has approved the hostage release agreement, which requires full cabinet approval before it can take effect. As I publish this the full cabinet is meeting and some time tonight will approve the agreement

Cabinet meeting 11/21/2023

Once ratified, the names of the Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel will be published on a government website, allowing 24 hours for individuals to petition the High Court of Justice to block their release. However, the High Court is unlikely to obstruct the prisoner release, and is expected to render a rapid decision.

The acceptance process of the hostage agreement is anticipated to be completed within the next 36 hours, with the first hostages potentially being released as early as Thursday. The ceasefire will commence with the release of the first child.

The upcoming days will be emotionally challenging, with joy for the families of the released hostages and disappointment for those whose loved ones remain captive. After this initial release, approximately 180 hostages will still be held, and the status of those hostages will in many cases remain unknown.

GAZA

Inside Gaza, the IDF continued operations in the cities of Zeitoun and Jabaliya, announcing the near complete capture of these areas. Sadly, the IDF disclosed the names of two more fallen soldiers.

ISRAEL’S NORTHERN BORDER

There was significant violence on our Northern border today. Israel seems to have carried out a targeted attack in South Lebanon, killing Khalil Haraz, the deputy commander of the Al Qassam Brigades. This led to an above-average number of retaliatory attacks in the North. Nevertheless, Hezbollah's attacks remained confined to areas close to the border, indicating a reluctance on their part to escalate into a larger conflict.

ANTISEMITISM

Recently, I shared a clearly antisemitic tweet posted by Elon Musk. The commercial backlash was swift, with companies including Apple, Disney, and Paramount withdrawing their advertisements from “X”. However, some critical of antisemitic remarks made by college students and faculty have refrained from criticizing Musk. On her Pivot podcast, prominent tech journalist Kara Swisher, challenged billionaire Bill Ackman. Despite Ackman's insistence that Harvard address antisemitism among its students and faculty, he hesitated to condemn Musk. Both Swisher and her cohost Scott Galloway declaratively stated that all signs of antisemitism, whether from the right, or the left, need to be cauterized before they spread and become normalized. Meanwhile, Musk has been trying hard to prove he is not an antisemite, quickly tweeting to that effect, and then tonight tweeting that all of “X”’s income from things relating to the Gaza War will be donated to Israeli hospitals and the Red Crescent in Gaza.

BUSINESS

Refine Intelligence, specializing in combating financial crime, has raised $13 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by Glilot Capital Partners and Fin Capital, with contributions from SYN Ventures, Valley Ventures, and Ground Up Ventures. Founded in 2022, Refine Intelligence has 15 employees, with 10 based in its Israeli development center.

BioCatch, a company that develops software for banking fraud detection and prevention, completed a secondary transaction of about $70 million with Sapphire Fund, based on a valuation of over $1 billion. This transaction follows a $40 million stake purchase by Premira in May, making them the third-largest shareholder.

Lastly, Lasso Security, which recently returned investments from Web Summit’s controlling stockholder — due to their support of Hamas — announced a $6 million funding round. Lasso is developing a security system for large language models (LLMs) to prevent data leaks and attacks, such as Prompt Injection.

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